Web 2.0 Course Reflection

Wow! That was a lot of tools/resources covered in a short stretch of time. At times I've felt overwhelmed, curious, perplexed, and excited by the all of the possibilities these topics have for teaching and learning! I need to remember that this truly was an introduction to just some of the web tools available to us. There is no way I can become proficient with them all over the course of 12 weeks. I am happy to at least have had the chance to mess around a bit with each and feel comfortable developing a better understanding of how I can incorporate some of the tools in my teaching as time allows.
I have already implemented some of the tools in my teaching and can envision the applications of others. If had to identify the top 3 web 2.0 tools covered in this course that will impact my teaching, the list would include:
Social Bookmarking : gather and share great resources
Google Sites: A venue to communicate with students and their families.
Presentations : Learning how to effective communicate using various web tools

Presentations

I enjoyed exploring the various resources on creating and sharing presentations. It was very interesting to read that a PowerPoint presentation should really be the background support for the oral presentation. It is our job to help prepare our student to be effective communicators and teach them the elements of a successful presentation.

I found the slideshare resource to be engaging and fairly easy to use. I can certainly see is appeal to my students and will attempt implement its use in the classroom.

Podcasting

Although I have been listening to podcasts for entertainmnet purposes for a long time, I guess I hadn't thought about having possibilities to have students create podcasts to share their work. I have many students who would benefit from having the option to orally share their discoveries and knowledge. Through exploring podcasts that other elementary students have created, I can envision many uses for this tool. I've seen excellent book reviews, shared writing, and explanations of science experiments.
I will continue to explore and learn more about creating, using, and sharing podcast to showcase my students' school work.

Wiki

Yet another great web tool uncovered! I am beginning to feel like I do when I go out for appetizers with friends. Everything looks great and I start in enjoying all the different great tastes and then all of a sudden, not another bite! Not even a pea!
Who knows, maybe if wikis were one of the first resources that we explored, I would have endorsed it and had great collaborative sites up and running to share the teaching and learning directly with my students. As Connie stated in her reply to me in my forum post, "You've been exposed to this tool, and someday you may see the fit for your classroom." Well stated!

Work on Google Site

I continue to work on building a site in order to better communicate with students and their families. I hope my site will be a vehicle for families to gather information of what we are doing in the classroom, to view student work, and to access resources.

I have created a few different pages so far. I feel that I got the hang of creating a page of resources with active links. I was able to create links to web sites as well as linking a page within my site.
I was able to insert pictures from the web on my volcano page. I have tried uploading some images from my computer(illustrations that the students created), but have been unable to insert them into my site. I tried creating a presentation using google docs with the images but was not successful loading the file. I also tried attaching the file the illustrations were in to one of my site pages, but once again was unsuccessful.

So I now have a good idea what I want to explore futher to add to my google site!

Google Sites

This is kind of what I was hoping for! We have been introduced to a number of great tools and resources through this course, but my goal was to come away with something that I could use to communicate with to students and their families. I am just getting a handle on using creating a site and look forward to learning more in the next few weeks, months, and years!

Google Docs

As big and powerful as google docs is, I do not forsee utilizing it much with my students. Based on my limited experience with google docs, I would say that it is geared for an audience that is more technology savy than my third graders. I say this based on the collaborative nature of many of the applications found in google docs.

I do however see the value in becoming more familiar and thus more comfortable using google docs myself. I really like the idea of being able to compose, save, and store many different kinds fo documents online. The ability to access the documents from any computer, anywhere is a very inticing feature.

Readers' Theater Piggy Pie

Delicious: Social Bookmarks

When I can find the time, I enjoy navigating around the web looking for interesting sites. The problem is the time it takes to just go jumping around from one site to another and ending up completely off the topic I originally was looking for. I have found the using Delicious has expedited my searches but accessing sites that others have already found, and for whatever reason, deemed good enough to bookmark. This shared approach of locating and sharing resources is helpful on many different levels.
The way I envision utilizing this in the classroom is to search and capture sites using Delicious and then storing them on my portaportal account that can be set up for students and parents to support units of study being covered on the classroom. I just like the layout and organization system on portaportal better for the age of my students.
I am fortunate that one of the teachers here at Dyer has already set up a Delicious account for teachers to gather and share sites. I think this is a great way to collectively build a storehouse of resources.

Intro to RSS

I can certainly see how using a RSS feeder can help collect information in an efficient manner.
At first I had a difficult time thinking of what exactly I would you such a sorting hat for. I started off my subscribing to Maine Today because I was in the mindset that an RSS was essentially to be used to gather news. I quickly found out that the scope of this feed was huge. My feeder was packed with updates with so many stories that I found it hard to look at them!I then narrowed(or thought I did!) my search and signed up for a Red Sox feed. Now that was more focused but still capturing stories that I had already read or had no interest in. I need to play around a bit more to see if I can limit the scope of the topic, say trades or injury report, from one site or multiple sites for that matter.

I did get the hang of the pretty simple organizational system of setting up folders. That was helpful! Very similar to the document storage used on PCs.

I am excited to become more familiar with the various application of these social / time saving tool. I really like the ability to create a public page for sharing feeds that may be of interests to others. I envision this as a means locate great sources that other teachers have found and are using. The recommended sites that come up when searching for feeds has already been very helpful.

Portaportal Resources

I plan to use my portaportal to provide resources and sites for students and families.
The organizational system that allows you to group your sites should make it pretty easy for students and families to locate sites that are relevant to the content we are working on.

Portaportal

Social Bookmarking! One more wonderful collaborative tool of the Read-Write Web.

I have an account with Delicious which I use to store some high use sights, but I have found Portaportal to be even better at finding and then sharing sites that others have found interesting/relevant.
I like the easy set-up and organization on Portaportal. I have begun to bookmark a number of sites but could spend hours exploring and discovering new ones!

Field Trip to BLOG

I have been venturing around cyberspace looking at the variety of blogs out there. I am both impressed and a little overwhelmed with the way this resource is being utilized. I found myself “hopping” from one blog to another and feeling that I was in danger of bookmarking so many that I would never be able to find a particular one again.
It was really interesting to get ideas on how different educators are using blogs within their classrooms. I really enjoyed one third grade teacher’s blog that had her silent reading time set up so that kids could discover and read other kids work on blogs. I found that to be a very authentic way of teaching a form of communication that will be relevant to our students.